Social Psychology

Conformity results from unspoken group pressure, real or imagined. Compliance occurs when people adjust their behavior because of a request.

A. The Role of Norms

Group norms tend to affect people's behavior even after the people are no longer members of that group.

B. Why Do People Conform?

Groups create norms; they decide what is right, wrong, and expected in a situation. Norms determine who will be liked and disliked in a group and who will receive rewards and punishments in a given social situation.

C. When Do People Conform?

  1. Ambiguity of the Situation. The more difficult it is to determine what is physical reality, the more people rely on the opinions of others.
  2. Unanimity and Size of the Majority. Conformity is greatest when a group decision is unanimous. The more people in a group making independent assessments, the higher the degree of conformity by an individual.
  3. Minority Influence. When they are persistent and united, minorities can influence the behavior or beliefs of a majority.
  4. Gender. On tasks equally familiar to men and women, no gender differences in conformity are found.

D. Inducing Compliance

People can be induced to comply with requests by starting with small requests, as in the "foot-in-the-door" technique; by starting with an unreasonable request, as in the "door-in-the-face" procedure; or by gaining verbal agreement for one request and then demonstrating the need to escalate the cost of the original commitment, as in the "low-ball" approach.

Obedience is a behavior change in response to a demand from an authority figure. Stanley Milgram created a procedure to measure obedience. He developed a situation in which subjects thought they were delivering shocks to a person, but the person was never actually shocked. When confederates complained about the pain of the shock they were supposedly receiving, Milgram demanded that the subjects continue to deliver the shocks. Despite feeling stressed, 65 percent of the subjects delivered the full 450 volts of shock possible.

A. Factors Affecting Obedience

  1. Prestige. When the status and legitimacy of the experimenter were reduced, obedience decreased, but only from 65 to 48 percent.
  2. Presence of Others Who Disobey. The presence of others who disobeyed decreased obedience to 10 percent.
  3. Personality Characteristics. Although social influences are the strongest factor in obedience, people high in authoritarianism were more likely than others to shock the learner. People with an external locus of control were also more likely to obey.

B. Evaluating Milgram's Studies

Recent tragedies that occurred as a result of unquestioning obedience to authority suggest that Milgram's findings are still relevant and important.

  1. Ethical Questions. Some observers say that the experiment was unethical. However, Milgram argued that his debriefing procedure and continued contact with his subjects showed that it was a positive experience. Ethical questions are difficult ones. Milgram's study would probably not be approved by today's ethics committees.
  2. Questions of Meaning. It has been suggested that there may be alternative explanations for the participants' behavior. However, most psychologists believe that, under certain circumstances, human beings are capable of extreme acts of brutality toward other humans.

Social dilemmas are situations in which an action that is most rewarding for each individual will, if adopted by all, become catastrophic for the group.

  1. The Prisoner's Dilemma. Researchers have created a game in which cooperation guarantees the best mutual outcome but in which there are incentives to compete. Players cannot be certain that their partners will cooperate. Research shows that people tend to respond competitively because winning is rewarding and competition seems to beget more competitive behavior.
  2. Resource Dilemmas. When people share a common resource, conflicts exist between the individual and the group, and between short- and long-term interests.

B. Fostering Cooperation

Cooperation increases when nonthreatening and relevant communications increase. Playing tit-for-tat, or rewarding cooperative responses with cooperation and punishing exploitative strategies with like actions, produces a high degree of overall cooperation.

C. Interpersonal Conflict

When one person can win only at another's expense, it is a zero-sum game, which can lead to interpersonal conflict.

  1. Causes of Conflict. There are four major causes: competition for scarce resources, revenge, attributing another's motives to selfishness or unfriendliness, and faulty communication.
  2. Managing Conflict. Conflict can lead to beneficial changes. It is much better to manage conflict than to eliminate it. Bargaining, third-party interventions, and the introduction of superordinate goals are all methods of managing conflict.

A. Group Leadership

In general, good leaders are intelligent, ambitious, and flexible. Leadership ability also depends on the situation and on the person's style of handling it. Both the task-oriented style and the person-oriented style of leadership are effective, depending on the structure of the group's task and the time pressure the group is under. Research has uncovered gender differences in leadership. Women are more democratic and tend to use the person-oriented style of leadership, whereas men tend to be more task-oriented.

B. Groupthink

In small, closely-knit groups, decisions can reflect a process called groupthink, a pattern of thinking that renders members unable to evaluate decisions realistically. Groupthink occurs when the group feels isolated from outside forces, intense stressors are experienced, and the leader has already made up his or her mind. Assigning someone a "devil's advocate" role and arranging ways to gather opinions anonymously can help avoid groupthink.